Peru - The Sacred Valley and the Inca Trail

The beautiful Río Urubamba valley, popularly known as El Valle Sagrado (the Sacred Valley), is about 15km north of Cusco. The star attractions are the Inca ruins of Pisac and Ollantaytambo, but the valley is also packed with other Inca sites, as well as hectic markets and traditional Andean villages. We visited both of the above on our way to start the Inca Trail. They were both pretty amazing but not a touch on Machu Piccu. It is the best-known archaeological site on the continent. I have always wanted to trek along the route the Incas took so I was extremely excited!





After visiting the towns of Pisaca and Ollantaytambo we headed for our campsite. We camped at km82 for the night before getting up early and starting the 4 day trek. We were met by 16 porters (there were only 10 of us) at the camp, we paid them to carry our bags and also all the camping equipment. We arrived and were shown our tents and then food was cooked under the ground covered with hot coals. We got an early night and then set off at 8am the next morning. The trek was great and we were extremely lucky with the weather and only had one day of grotty weather (the sexy ponchos were worn!). Tom wore his $1 poncho during the first down pour and was much drier than me, wearing my brand new (very expensive) Northface jacket, so after that the poncho was worn all the time.




Each night we arrived at our camp to find the porters already set up. They are absolutely amazing, they actually run past you as you are struggling up the hills. They are carrying lots of weight on their back and are wearing sandles and make it look so easy - I felt pretty pathetic! We were lucky and had a great group which consisted of a lovely family of 4 from Canada, a couple from Venezuela who were on their honeymoon, a french and Australian and us. Bizarely Alex and Olivia Meggy, Guernsey girls from back home were also doing the trek! We had a Guernsey reunion picture at the sun gate overlooking Machu Piccu!


We were both pretty impressed with ouirselves as we didn´t feel the altitude or any pains afterwards, I actually felt fitter! Some of the path was really uneven and we encountered thousands of steep steps with high inclinations. The highest point was 4200m called the ´Dead woman´s Path´





After trekking for 4 days and passing through high-mountain desert, cloud forest, and mountain passes covering a distance of 35kms we eventually made it to the sun gate overlooking Maccu Pichu, it was worth getting up at 3.30am for, the view was amazing. We then hiked down to Machu Piccu and had a tour of the site for a couple of hours. The place is amazing and definitely worth a visit, I would recommend the hike to anyone, it is tough, but much more rewarding than arriving on the train with the other hundreds of tourists.





After looking around the site we got a bus down to the town Aguas calientes - don´t go there! We managed to change our ticket and head back on the train from Aguas Calientes to Cusco early. We arrived and had the first shower in 4 days - it was heaven. We were pretty smelly to put it mildly! We spent the next day wondering around cusco before getting a night bus to Puno.